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Friday, August 31, 2012

Paul Ryan, this week's GOP Golden Boy, whoseALLEGEDcharisma is all the republicans care
about, pledged in his convention speech that he and Mittsy would usher in
an ethic of responsibility.

That was his first lie.

He replayed a lie he's been
spreading ever since Mittsy tapped him to be Veep. He said,
again, that Barack Obama, while campaigning for president, promised that a
GM plant in Wisconsin would not shut down. Ryan said, in his speech, "That
plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And
that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised
is nowhere in sight."

Except...candidate Obamanever promised that. And, while
the plant did close down, and remains closed to this day, it was shut down in
December 2008, a full monthbeforeObama became President. So, Paul Ryan blatantly lied.

Remember that, heblatantlylied.

But this is nothing new from a
campaign that doesn't believe in the facts. In fact, Romney pollster Neil
Newhouseblatantlysaid, "We're not going to let our
campaign be dictated by fact-checkers."

Yup, Romney/Ryan will not rely
on facts this election cycle. But, let's forget Mittsy for a moment and return
to Paul Lyin'.

Paul Ryan slammed Obama for
not supporting a deficit commission report; Paul Ryan, himself, voted against
that same report. He failed to mention that.

Paul Ryan claims Obama
"funneled" $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare; Paul
Ryan failed to mention that his own budget planrelies on those very same savings.

Paul Ryan laid blame for
Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. government debt at President Obama's
feet; Paul Ryan failed to mention that S&P--in explaining its
downgrade--referred to the debt ceiling standoff. The process of raising the
debt ceiling was politicized in the last Congress, driven by House Republicans,
led by Paul Ryan.

Now, I am a democrat, a quite
Liberal, left-leaning Democrat, so I am not at all surprised that Paul Ryan is
an outright liar. But someone else is confused about Ryan's inability to
distinguish the truth from fiction, and that person, Sally Kohn, is a Fox
News columnist.

Yes, Sally Kohn said that Paul Ryan's speech "was
an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant
lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political
speech....On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan
earned the gold."

To be fair, Sally Kohn calls herself
the "progressive voice on Fox News" but that's neither here nor
there. The focus is on the apparent ease with which Paul Ryan mangles the
truth. And she broke down his speech into three categories:

He was
Dazzling, she says:

"Ryan's
primary job was to introduce himself and make himself seem likeable, and he did
that well. The personal parts of the speech were very personally delivered,
especially the touching parts where Ryan talked about his father and mother and
their roles in his life. And at the end of the speech, when Ryan cheered the
crowd to its feet, he showed an energy and enthusiasm that’s what voters want
in leaders and what Republicans have been desperately lacking in this
campaign."

But he
was also Deceiving:

"On
the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s
speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number
of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech.
On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the
gold.The
good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new
jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are
rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from
Ryan’s mouth. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that
Ryan still irresponsibly repeated.

Fact:
While Ryan tried to pin the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on
spending under President Obama, the credit rating was actually downgraded
because Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling.

Fact:
While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shutdown of a GM plant in Janesville,
Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan
actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has
criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to
prevent other plants from closing.

Fact:
Though Ryan insisted that President Obama wants to give all the credit for
private sector success to government, that isn't what the president said.
Period.

Fact:
Though Paul Ryan accused President Obama of taking $716 billion out of
Medicare, the fact is
that that amount was savings in Medicare reimbursement rates (which,
incidentally, save Medicare recipients out-of-pocket costs, too) and Ryan
himself embraced these savings in his budget plan.

Elections
should be about competing based on your record in the past and your vision for
the future, not competing to see who can get away with the most lies and
distortions without voters noticing or bother to care. Both parties should hold
themselves to that standard. Republicans should be ashamed that there was even
one misrepresentation in Ryan’s speech but sadly, there were many.”

And she
ended by calling him Distracting:

“And
then there’s what Ryan didn’t talk about.Ryan
didn’t mention his extremist stance on banning all abortions with no exception
for rape or incest, a stance that is out of touch with 75% of American voters. Ryan
didn’t mention his previous plan to hand over Social Security to Wall
Street. Ryan
didn’t mention his numerous votes to raise spending and balloon the deficit
when George W. Bush was president. Ryan
didn’t mention how his budget would eviscerate programs that help the poor and
raise taxes on 95% of Americans in order to cut taxes for millionaires and
billionaires even further and increase—yes, increase—the deficit. These
aspects of Ryan’s resume and ideology are sticky to say the least. He would
have been wise to tackle them head on and try and explain them away in his
first real introduction to voters. But instead of Ryan airing his own dirty
laundry, Democrats will get the chance.At the
end of his speech, Ryan quoted his dad, who used to say to him, 'Son. You
have a choice: You can be part of the problem, or you can be part of the
solution.'"

Ryan
may have helped solve some of the likeability problems facing Romney, but
ultimately by trying to deceive voters about basic facts and trying to distract
voters from his own record, Ryan’s speech caused a much larger problem for
himself and his running mate.”

The
facts are these:

Paul Ryan
has lied about several very important issues, involving jobs, the stimulus, the
debt ceiling, his own budget plan.

The
facts are also these:

Paul
Ryan wants to take away a woman’s right to choose, on any variety of topics,
from abortion, to contraception.

The facts
are also these:

America
cannot afford to have a man like Paul Ryan, no matter how much he seems
likable, a heartbeat away from the presidency. Remember, Sarah Palin? Remember how
we all wondered what would happen if McCain became President and she was that
close to running this country?

So, the after effects of last week's Ven Diagram of
"Hownottreat
a client" are finally put away and it's time to move on.

To OMG & Taylor, aka Lord
& Taylor.

This week the designtestants
will be creating a tenth look--a cocktail dress or evening dress--in honor of
the PR's tenth season, to go on sale at Lord & Taylor with nine looks by
nine other PR designers; everyone from Mondo to Chris March, to Bert to Giordana.

I know. Which one was Giordana? But
I digress.

So, since it's a rather simple
challenge, let's just rip.....

CHRISTOPHER

I'm beginning to loathe him.
Seriously. For a gay man his Cher impersonation was sorely lacking, so that's
number one. Number two is that ridiculous shredding, or feathering, or
whatever the @&$% you call it, detail that he wants to trademark as his signature
detail. Guess what Christopher? I wore shredded jeans in the 80s, so I already
trademarked it; and so did every other mo and diva and pseudo-punk back in the
day. You aren't new.

And, again, seriously? Another
outrageously large scarf? Stop. Just stop.

He notices right away that
there are only two gowns in the PR collection, so he’ll make a gown to
"stand out." He tells us it will be "the best gown ever"
and then tells us he "sounds like a tool."

Yes. I agree on one point. But then he tells us that this
time the shredding will be different. See, the first time he shredded an entire
gown, and the second time he shredded a skirt, but this time, oh this time,
he's shredding a top.

Oh.How.Daring.

His dress is boring. A fleshy
pink--he called it ballet pink--shredded top, over a simple flowing stretchy
silk long skirt. Yawn. And, I think, not very mass-market. Producing that
shredding detail is labor intensive, so how can L&T sell it for less than
$300. And why would they sell it when there are better dresses out there.

But Heidi likes it. It's
beautiful and elegant. Kors likes that it looks like separates, but also that
it looks like a t-shirt and a dress. That can't be good. Guest judge, Bonnie
Brooks, the president of the oft-mentioned Lord & Taylor, likes that it
looks light, but isn't. Huh? And Nina says that while it was a sophisticated
gown, it wouldn't work on many people.

Oh, and they all mentioned
that the shredding detail was getting old.

We get it. You shred. But then Christopher gets the
win and I'm looking at Carlos and thinking WTF just happened.

Seriously.

FABIO

He's growing on me, both as a designer and a person, though the neck tattoo kinda bothers me. Having been tattooed on
numerous occasions, I cannot imagine having someone tattoo my neck.

Ouch.

But his dress is simple and
chic and he's one of the few to actually think about how the dress can be
mass-produced and still have a decent profit margin because, you know, L&T
needs the dough.

I don't know if it's his
Freegan diet of lunching from garbage cans, but Fabio remains completely centered
and sane, working away with one goal in mind. For all his ink and fluffy hair
he isn't about drama and crazy--which is good since those girls are cornering
the market on loony.

He works, and makes a simple
dress, with an interesting halter back. Basic black, sure, and kinda boring, but
it looks like his design. Urban trashcan, and I mean that it a good way. Really, I do.

Heidi likes his dress, and
Kors, although not a fan of the asymmetrical hem thinks Fabio has done it well.
He is not a fan, however, of the exposed zipper. Bonnie thought a lot of women,
especially Lord & Taylor women, would wear a Fabio, while Nina called it a
perfect Little Black Dress with a twist; versatile enough for the office and
for a party.

His design should have beaten Christopher’s
but I imagine his win last week simply kept him Top Three.

ELENA

I'm beginning to think she's bipolar
because one week she's a raging longshoreman with a mouth like, well, mine, and
the next week she's weeping uncontrollably. Too bad the soaps are being cut
from daytime TVF because she could have had a second career playing crazy in
the afternoon.

She doesn’t like the challenge
because she doesn't do normal. She isn't commercial, she's avant-garde and
haute couture and you can't bring that down to mainstream. Well, tell that to Kors and YSL and
Donna Karan and all those other designers that do couture lines but also have commercial
clothing as well.

Adapt. Elena. Cry later, adapt
now.

She cuts muslin and tells us
she has no "f**king idea" what she's doing. She moves her fabric and
her scissors and her muslin all around the table; she reminds me of any one of
our cats playing with their food like something wonderful will happen if you
just kick it around. It doesn't.

And it doesn't get you on top,
and Elena never gets on top--though I'm thinking that she's a top in real life.
This isn't her thing; she doesn't do simple; she's avant-garde; the judges
don't get her.

Yada.Yada.Yada. She says
she doesn't dumb down her designs but her constant rants are certainly dumb.
Adapt.

Her dress is interesting. Baby
doll, as Christopher says, with a harness; Lolita dominatrix? That could work I
guess. I thought the skirt looked very stiff and bulky, even though I know
Elena likes stiff.

She got one of the top scores
and began to weep onstage because she thinks the judges don’t get her, and don’t
understand her and no one does what she does and....shaddup already.

Heidi says they've liked her
designs, but that she needs to think about each individual challenge and how to
work her aesthetic into it. Heidi then tells her the dress is marketable--and
I'm sure that hurt a lot to Elena--because of the girly, but hard, silhouette.
Nine loved the open back with the harness detail, but felt it was lost on the
front, while Kors said this was the first time Elena matched her aesthetic to
the client. Bonnie muttered something about it looking French with a fun edge,
but I think she was just planning on where to go for lunch.

Elena gets Top Three.

MELISSA

Such a contradiction. Pretty
blond girl who likes Goth and has tattoos. I mean, she comes off as Barbie and
then you see her in action and she's like Rocky Horror Barbie.

But she stays away from black,
mainly because all the other designers are going black because cocktail dresses
are always in black, except the one they just saw at L&T.

She picks a bronze brocade fabric
and it is going to be bad before it gets good.

She has all kinds of trouble
with the fabric, and when Tim tells her that it will show every seam and dart
and teardrop, Melissa thinks about using another fabric. But she doesn't want
to go Back To Black--Sidenote: I miss Amy Winehouse--and all the colored
fabrics are too soft for her to create that standup boat neck detail that will
set her dress apart.

So, she'll try it on her
model, fit it perfectly, and then change the fabric. only she doesn't change
the fabric. Instead, she takes the whole dress apart and cuts it again and sews
it again, and, well, this cannot be good.

At the last moment she is
running from workroom to sewing room trying to piece together what she thinks
will be a hot mess. But it isn't. It's very cool, I think, with the fabric
standing up in the front. it's very space-age, Judy Jetson at prom, but it's so
not Lord & Taylor. I cannot see Buffy McFinkelstein wearing this to a party
at the Goldfarbers penthouse.

Just saying.

But she's Top Four? Four? Yes,
the judges like four designers best and only a bottom two. Kors liked that she
chose a good fabric--the right fabric for the right dress--and loved the neckline.
He was not a fan of her asymmetry, and thought it needed a jingle bell at the
end. Nina loved the collar and the color, while Bonnie thought it ingenious, if
you just cut off that awful hem.

So Last Minute Melissa gets a
Last Minute Top Four.

Who knew!

DMITRY

First off. Love that accent. I
always love accent on men. Second off. love clothes he design. Sexy chic
clothings.

He is a little safe in his
designs. They are always sleek and form-fitting and sexy, with some kind of
sewing detail. But, they are sleek and sexy, and simple, and, well, doable for
under $300 at the L&T.

But, and I hate to but, Dmitry
seems to always do a simple chic dress with some kind of interesting sewing
detail on it. It's nice, but like Christopher's shreds and Ven's rose, we've seen
it before. I want Dmitry to bust out and go all ball gown-y and fabulous and patterns
and frilly.

I mean, he does sleek and sexy
really well, but can you imagine a sea of sleek and sexy with interesting seams
running down the runway in the tents?

Me neither.

He's safe.

SONJIA

After weeks of being on top,
or safe, or winning, last week she fell to the Bottom Three and this week
that's all she can think about, and, sadly, all she can talk about. I was
hoping Christopher would finally master his Cher impression and go all "Moonstruck" on Sonjia:Snap out of it!

She gets off the line that the
guys are more girly than the women, but then all the girls have meltdowns and
breakdowns while all the guys--and I include Alicia in this group--simply work
and get their jobs done. And then they stand at their
tables and watch Melissa scramble to make a dress in five minutes, and watch
Elena body-slam her mannequin to the ground, and see Sonjia sink to the floor
in tears. So, the girly guys get their work done, and the manly girls have
issues?

Yeah, I don't get it either. And I don’t get how she could
try the dress on her model on Day One, but then Day Two not be able to get the
girl in it. I mean she was tugging it down from the top and then tugging it up
from the bottom, and then she finally asked Elena to help while she sat quietly
in a corner--oh, no, she fell to the floor and just wept.

This is what I felt like doing
when I saw it. It looked like a dress from an old Carol Burnett Show sketch.
The frilly peplum waist--and again, how do I know from a peplum?--and the unfinished
hem, and the just plain nothingness to it. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't
a Sonjia.

I’d like to see Ven be
Origami'd out. Fold him, press him, shape him into a tiny airplane, open a
window and let fly.

But Ven does get the Spit-Take
Award, for uttering this line whilst I was sipping tea--and therefore causing
me to spew it around the room:

"This challenge is not
just about me....I'm thinking about the customer."
Sage advice, Ven, but a week too late, no?

And then he Origami's some
more. As Gunnar rightly noted, "That's a lot of folding."

And as Sonjia noted, :::eye
roll:::

And as Christopher said,
"Holiday dress for a thirteen year old."

But as his usual
creation--other than last week’s d-I-saster--walks the runway, he says he’ll be
Top Three or safe.

Yeah, Top Six. Or actually
Seven. Out of nine.

That doesn't bode well.

ALICIA

I'm still a little stunned
that a Lesbian is on the PR designing clothes for women that will be sold at
Lord & Taylor and not at Lowes & Target.

But then she mentions Chanel
and I say, "Lesbian say what?"

And she wants to Chanel, er
channel, Chanel, in her dress by doing a dropped waist. She is sure the judges
will hate it, but she's a Lesbian and she doesn't care.

Or something.

And she creates a box pleat on
her dress. Well, two, actually, one at the crotch and one at the ass. And when
she shows them to Tim, on her mannequin, the interior of the pleat is blue. So,
um, the model will be spewing blue from her ladybits and her butt?

It seems like a gamble.

Tim thinks it looks like
armor, and Alicia will need that to fend off the Barbs of Kors. He said it
looked like a field hockey uniform, and all it needed was a Jason Voorhees
hockey mask and the model could hatchet her way through the judging panel. He
said if it was sporty, it wasn't sporty enough, and if it was dressy, it was
dressy enough. it just wasn't enough. Bonnie thought it looked more office than
cocktail though she's never been to my work where office is cocktail; Nina thought it too mature and matronly with the
Chanel drop-waist and the little collar. it was Thoroughly Modern Mille,
without the modern.

But Alicia was safe, which
means.....

GUNNAR

Try as I might, every time he
speaks it feels like someone is taking a rusted iron back scratcher and running
it around on the underside of my skull.

But Gunnar has this one in the
bag because he understands the L&T woman; he understands the generational
aspect of their client. He can take ideas from two former PR designers and use
them to create his own one-of-a-kind--though not so much--look.

He tells us that he loves his fabric
"so much it hurts" and he has no idea how prophetic that sounds. But
then his head continues to expand as he reminds us that his dress will tie up
the "loose ends" of the L&T PR collection.

Loose ends? Was that a dig at Christopher’s
shredded feathered dress? No, that came later with a not-so-subtle eye-roll.

Another eye-roll appeared when
Tim saw Gunnar trying to put lace and sequins all over his dress and turn it
into something Matador. Gunnar wonders why everything he does goes Matador and
I think it's less about fashion and more about a certain wet dream he had as a
young queerling.

And it wasn't bad, though I
thought it looked like a dress Laure Bennett had designed on a previous PR season.
And, apparently, I wasn’t the only one.

Nina called it nice, but
expected. She'd seen it before, and Kors said,You have seen it before. it's on sale at
Lord & Taylor now!He
also dubbed it the dreaded Mother of the Bride. Bonnie thought the lace was old
and stupid and stiff--well, she might have just said stiff, those other words
are mine. Heidi gave it aPretty
good job.

Ouch.

So Gunnar was Auf'd and the
champagne flowed at Casa Bob y Carlos and....

Oh.No.You.Di'in't.

Gunnar gets saved too? Heidi
says all the designers met the challenge and yet just moments before they were
saying it dress was nothing special. WTF just happened. I uncorked the bubbly
for this?

MY TAKE

I was pissed. But then I saw
the previews for next week and it's a team challenge. Now, knowing that the challenges
are planned out before the season even starts shooting, and remembering that in
one week we lost the old lady and the Asian guy and someone else, well, they
needed to keep everyone last night to make three teams of three for next week.

So, this wasn't about all nine
designers doing good work, this was about keeping the teams even for next week.

I feel cheated.

I wanted Gunnar gone. Especially
after all his niceness on the runway whole his dress was skewered: Point taken.
Thanks for the feedback. I understand. oh really.

And then he walks backstage
and is so distraught he cannot even speak, except that he does speak and tells
us he has no idea why he was almost Auf'd.

Um, Gunnar? Your dress has
been done v=before and better.

That's why.

I think a muffin basket to the
old lady and the Asian guy is in order, because their scampering off the show
saved your ass.

"We're
not going to have a party when half of our friends ... can't do that thing
we're doing. We're not going to ask them to come celebrate a right they don't
have. That's just tacky! Forget like anything else, it's like really tacky for
us."

Kristen
Bell, Dax Shepard's fiance, on marriage equality:

"I
don't believe in standing in the way of love, and I want to stand up for that
right. And that's what it is. If someone wants to commit their life to another
person, why would I not bolster that argument?"

Once again, it’s going to
take more than just the LGBT community to gain equality. We need our straight
allies, and we need them to speak up.

Mittsy
Romney, offering a new excuse for not releasing his tax returns:

"Our church doesn’t
publish how much people have given. This is done entirely privately. One of the
downsides of releasing one’s financial information is that this is now all
public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It’s a very
personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our
church."

Um, Mittsy, you delusional
hack.

This might have made some minuscule bit of sense, had it been said the FIRST TIME anyone asked to see your returns.

And it might have made sense had you not already released the returns for
2010 that had all you church-y donations listed.

Your newest excuse holds about as
much water as any other excuse you’ve offered.

"As America prepares to pick our president for
the next four years—and as Florida prepares once again to play a decisive role—I'm
confident that President Barack Obama is the right leader for our state and the
nation. I applaud and share his vision of a future built by a strong and
confident middle class in an economy that gives us the opportunity to reap
prosperity through hard work and personal responsibility. It is a vision of the
future proven right by our history."

Snap.

I
don’t think too much about Crist, given his alleged closeted homosexuality,
but it is nice to see someone take a stand against their own party, and their
own candidate.

It
won’t make much of a splash, because it’s Crist, but it was still nice to read.

David
Mixner, former Clinton White House adviser, on the importance of voting:

"It is not enough just
to vote for Obama/Biden but we must turn out our vote. Reflect on the the
results of last Friday's CNN Poll to have all the proof you need to get busy
now. When all voters were polled, President Obama defeats good ole Mitt by 52%
to 43%. That is a nine point huge victory. However, when just those 'likely to
vote' were polled, the election becomes a toss-up with 49% to 47%. Every damn
voter we get to the poll from our community is going to count. Every
single person we can get to the polls will make a difference. No community,
none, loses more than the LGBT community if the right-wing Tea Party
Republicans become the dominant force in our American politics. LGBT Americans
have died, been beaten and have paid terrible prices in order for us to get this
close to full equality. What a shame if we honor their memory by not completing
this battle."

It’s one thing to say you
support the president but you must follow that up with voting. Saying it doesn’t
really count unless you do something about it.

"We have had lots and lots of people praying around the
clock that it would move, and after you watch from the very beginning where
they were saying it was coming and now where
they say it is going, then it has really moved out of the way for us and we
appreciate God doing that and moving it for us!"

Um, moron? May I call you moron?

Hurricanes move. Winds cause them to move. Ocean currents
cause them to strengthen and weaken which causes them to move.

And, when you were praying it to move away from Tampa did
you give the tiniest rat’s ass thought about sending it to New Orleans?

"It is an embarrassment
to your party to play that card...This stuff about getting rid of the work
requirement for welfare is dishonest — everyone's pointed out it's
dishonest....And you are playing that little ethnic card there. You can play
your games and giggle about it, but the fact is that your side is playing that
card."

It was pathetic to watch Priebus giggle like a mean girl when Matthews spoke.

It’s just further proof that
the GOP isn’t about moving forward, it’s about lying and race-baiting and
rehashing some issue that’s been dead—and I think we’ve seen the death
certificate every time we see the birth certificate—for years.

Chris Christie,
on whether or not Mittsy should release more tax returns, and if he should have
made that birther “joke”:

“I think if he had to do it over again, he wouldn’t make the
joke. But you know what, when you’re on camera 12, 14 hours a day, and you’re
at a big rallies and you’re just going off the cuff, there are going to be
times you’re going to say stuff you wish you could take back. If you get a
chance to talk to Governor Romney, I think he’d tell you that he wishes he
could take that one back.”

Wrong, KrispyKreme.

You learn, as a politician, through all your surveys and reports and polls, what you can and can't say, should and shouldn't say.

You learn what your base wants to hear, and Mittsy needs the wingnut GOP base so he purposely made that "joke".

Michael
Musto, writing for the Village Voice, on “gay” Republicans:

"Just
when you assumed gay self-loathing had been deposited in the dead-chicken bins,
along comes a new wave of self-flagellation aimed to throw us under the hate
truck. At a time when gays have made significant progress and other people are
fully available to do all the hating, some gays crazily want to join in! I'm
talking about the wave of gay Republicans who grovel before the enemy, making
lavish excuses for politically repellent candidates—you know, the Romney/Ryan
ticket—who would gladly turn us into a subordinate class without any semblance
of full equality. There's no one more self-loathing than the oxymoronic 'grubs'
(gay Repubs) who rally to the defense of power-crazed bigots, spinning them as
champions of decency and fairness who happen to be grossly misunderstood."

I understand having a conservative mindset and feeling like the Democratic party doesn't represent you. But as a gay man, how do you justify following a party that constantly seeks to denigrate you?

That's the height of self-loathing.

Stephen Colbert, on how it’s actually The Gays who created
Hurricane Isaac:

"Hurricanes form from rising moisture created by hot
steamy man action aboard a gay Caribbean cruise. When that sin gets high enough
it makes the angels cry and those tears fall to earth in the form of massive
precipitation because homosexuals are a vital part of the water cycle. That's
why the gay symbol is a rainbow!"

As
if we needed further proof the Mormons--for the most part--don't like The Gays,
at least one Mormon-owned television station in Utah has declared that they
will not air The New Normal due to its "perverted"
depiction of a gay male couple.

Cuz
the two guys use a surrogate to have a baby, and, maybe, because Ellen Barkin
is in it and she is high-lariously racist.

Add
to that the fact that One Million Moms, via spokesNazi Monica Cole, and Bryan
Fischer of the American Family Association, have joined in and you can just bet
this will be the most watched new show of the season.

I'm
in, because I'm out.

I know it isn't a big jump to
conclude that Rush Limbaugh is a drug-addicted moron, but then even Rush goes
for a deep swim in the intellectually-challenged pool.

See, Rush is
suggesting that President Obama might have personally tampered with the
Hurricane Center’s prediction models for the path of Hurricane Isaac, with the
hopes that it would force the GOP to delay or cancel its convention in Tampa,
Florida this week.

Yeah, he did. Sure, while he
was spreading this conspiracy theory, and also denying he was spreading this conspiracy
theory, Rush said:

“And I noticed that the hurricane center’s track is—and
I’m not alleging conspiracies here. The hurricane center is the regime; the
hurricane center is the Commerce Department and I'm noticing that that
track stayed zeroed in on Tampa day after day after day. And the Republicans
react to it accordingly over the weekend, canceling the first day of the
convention.What could be better
for the Democrats than the Republicans to cancel a day of this...Okay,
6:45 p.m. Saturday night the Republicans announce that they’re canceling
Monday. At 6:45 p.m. Saturday night, everybody is still under the impression
that Isaac is making a beeline for very close to Tampa.It was an hour and 15
minutes later that the eight p.m. model runs showed New Orleans. I’m alleging
no conspiracy. I’m just telling you, folks, when you put this all together in this
timeline, I’m telling you, it’s unbelievable."

And speaking of moronic Republican lapdogs, Ann Romney has
come out as saying Modern Family is her favorite TV show, and how she most
looked forward to watching it each week.

Modern Family. With the gay couple and their adopted Asian
baby.

Well,Modern Family executive
producer Steve Levitan found it all a bit ironic, given her faith--the GOP--and
her religion--Mormonism--and Tweeted:

"Thrilled Ann Romney says ModFam is her favorite show.
We'll offer her the role of officiate at Mitch & Cam's wedding. As soon
as it's legal."

Snap.

Last week I watched
Meet The Press from the RNC in Tampa, and Arizona Governor--and certifiable
moron....which I'll prove momentarily--Jan Brewer was a guest.

Now, I'm notALLEGING
she's a drunkard, but I am saying that watching Brewer try to stitch together
a coherent thought was a little like watching me try to insert a key into my
front door lock after a night of martoonis with the fellas.

It was that ugly.
They were discussing Todd Akin and his idiocies and she kept calling him
Adkins, or Atkins, or anything but his real name. And then she mumbled something
about the Democrats War On Women. I know!

But, if you
needed further convincing that Jan Brewer isALLEGEDLY a drunkard, or just a full
bore lunatic, look no further than the fact that she has endorsed President
Obama from the floor of the RNC.

“I know if President Obama is
elected in November, which I hope he is, he will be able to come together with
all of us and come up with a solution. I believe he will secure our borders.
And therefore, we can resolve all of the other issues as a simple matter.”

Now it's
possible that Brewery, er, Brewer misspoke, but isn't it just further proof
that she isn't fit to be a governor? Even of
Arizona?

The Log Cabin Republicans believed their presence at this year's GOP national
convention would help move their party toward equality.

The GOP helping The Gays move forward? Really? LCR? Is
anyone home there?

Of course they soon realized they were wrong, because
the Republican platform is
just as discriminatory and hateful as eve:

"The platform affirms the rights of states and the
federal government not to recognize same-sex marriage," reads the party
manifesto. "It backs a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the
union of one man and one woman."

And now, all of the sudden, the LCR is pissed at the GOP for
being so visibly and vocally anti-gay--as most self-loathing closeted homosexuals
are--and LCR's director of programs, Casey Pick, says: "We
lost. And you could say the social conservatives in our party dropped the
hammer harder because we were there."

Or you could just say the LCR wore blinders where the GOIP
was concerned.

Paul Ryan.

Tea party Grand Wizard, or so it seems, who said in his
acceptance speech--I think he won the GOP for Best Hangdog
Eyes--that American rights are moral rights given to us by God:

"Each of these great moral ideas is essential to
democratic government – to the rule of law, to life in a humane and decent
society. They are the moral creed of our country, as powerful in our time, as
on the day of America’s founding. They are self-evident and unchanging, and
sometimes, even presidents need reminding, that our rights come from nature and
God, not from government."

Um, Paul, you delusional fuck. Um, God already has a set of
laws called The Bible, which, by the way, a lot of you who quote continuously
from, but do not actually follow yourselves.

So, God's laws are in the Bible, and, correct me if I'm
wrong, and I'm not, so best stay quiet, I don't see god's name on the
Declaration of Independence. I don't see it on the Bill of Rights or the
Constitution.

In fact, other than mentioning a creator I don't really see
a lot of God in our laws.

And, if we're going to hurry back to the days of using
God's laws, what did she say about lying? She may have not mentioned it specifically,
but I know she's be less than thrilled that you keep saying the GM plant in Wisconsin
was closed by Obama when, in fact the truth is--and take a moment to acquaint yourself
with the truth--that the plant closed monthsbeforeObama won the White House, and many months
before he even moved in.

Failing to understand that makes you a moron, and a Tea
party darling.

Good luck.

In other RNC news:

New jersey Governor Chris Christie was the big speaker--and I'm just going to let that one lie there--at the RNC the other night.

And I loved it.

Mainly because his speech, about the GOP and presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, rambled on for nearly
twenty minutes before he even mentioned Mittsy.

See, it was less "Let's
get Mitt in the White House" and more "He can't win but vote for me
in 2016."

Add to that the fact that Ron Paul and The Paulettes won't
endorse you and the RNC is looking like the Grand Old Clusterfuck.

You know, Mittsy Romney keeps telling us that he's the best
man to fix the economy and that's why we should vote for him come November, but
I know a group of coal miners who say Mittsy wasn't very good for their
paychecks recently.

It seems that Mittsy
was in Ohio earlier this month, visiting a coal mine to talk about boosting
jobs in the coal industry, but while he was there the miners lost a day’s wages because attendance at the Romney rally was mandatory and unpaid.

The
Pepper Pike Company owns the Century mine where the workers, according to
Murray Energy Chief Financial Officer Rob Moore, were told they must attend the
rally without pay. Moore says that mine managers "communicated to our
workforce that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was
forced to attend."

Attendance
ismandatorybut
you don't have to attend? WTF kind of logic is that?

But
then Moore goes on to say that the mine had to be shut down for "safety
and security" reasons during Romney's visit, and that miners often lose a
days pay when the mines are shut down due to weather or power outages. But aren't those things you can't really control? A Mittsy visit was planned for a work day; it could have, and should have, been held another
day.

Then
Moore also explains that federal election law forbids paying employees to attend
political events. Okay, yeah, I can see that, when the employee chooses to attend
the event. But, again, the Pike Company shut down the mines and told the workers they
had to attend. That's not good for the workers, or the economy, or, well, I
guess it was good for Mittsy's ego because he got a crowd of miners to stand in
front of him like they were happy to be there.

Moore didn't
see anything negative in attending Romney's campaign appearance: "We
are talking about an event that was in the best interest of anyone that's
related to the coal industry in this area or the entire country."

But
then you take away a day’s pay. How is that in the best interests of the
workers if this economy is bad?

Siding
with Rob Moore was Murray Energy spokesman Gary Broadbent: "Rob Moore
made it abundantly clear that no employees were forced to attend the Romney
event. All participation was, and always has been, completely voluntary."

Mandatory.Is.Not.Voluntary.

And many of the miners
reported feeling intimidated into attending
Romney's appearance, and they report being told they would lose that day’s pay
unless they could make up their missed hours on overtime or weekends.

Their missed hours were forced
on them. Does no one, the mine spokes-tools or the CFO, or even Mittsy Romney,
for heaven's sake, see the idiocy in this situation? Or is that a ridiculous
question when you consider it's Mittsy?

Sidenote:Murray Energy contributed over $900,000 to GOP candidates in the last two years.

Down in Tampa, for the
Republican National Convention, aka Hate-a-palooza, House Speaker John Boehner
seems to have admitted that his party's strategy for winning in November
doesn't suppose that the GOP can win over some black and Latino voters, but
hopes they won't vote at all.

Boehner
wasn't talking about voter I.D. laws, which are being pushed by Republicans
and criticized as disenfranchising minority and poor voters, but he did
tell a luncheon hosted by the Christian Science Monitor in Tampa Monday that the Republican Party was
counting on apathy from the Latinos and blacks who are choosing Democrats over
Republicans by record margins in recent polls:

“This
election is about economics… These groups have been hit the hardest. They may
not show up and vote for our candidate but I’d suggest to you they won’t show
up and vote for the president either.”

Not
a big stretch for the GOP, if you remember that Doug Priesse, chair of the
Franklin County, Ohio, Republican Party, allowed that restrictions on early
voting hours and voter ID laws were meant to keep blacks from voting: